Gear is here

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Sadly the hoods on my brake levers have perished.

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Luckily I found a NOS set of Dia-Compe’s on eBay which should fit (I stupidly threw out the bike stand and stuff in the move so I’ll have to get the bike shop to do this for me).

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Thank fuck for cycling shoes that don’t look like cycling shoes!

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Love them.

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I went down to 99 Bikes in Alexandria to try on some helmets. Walked in wanting a Giro, but this MET just felt so much more comfortable. Still looks like a mushroom on my head though. As good as helmets look in photos, they always look like mushrooms on your head!

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Europa Cycles

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My Paino.

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Old (amazingly it was recently painted by Peter Fleming at Star Enamelers, same guy who painted my Paino!).

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New.

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This bike raced in the 2019 edition of L’Eroica, an amazing annual vintage bicycle ride that starts in the lovely village of Gaiole in Chianti in Italy (PS: also painted by Peter Fleming at Star Enamelers!).

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I picked up my Paino today from Europa Cycles. New cables and air in the tyres. I’m (almost) ready to ride!

Also managed to take a few snaps in the shop. Some things don’t change (and I’m so happy about it!). Steel is real and I love your old stuff better than your new stuff!

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Ates Blackheath

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Spent a beautiful weekend in the mountains with Gina who treated me to a lovely B’Day lunch at a gorgeous little restaurant called Ates in Blackhealth.

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Getting back on the bike

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Nick and I have been talking about catching up over rides at Centennial Park instead of coffees (we can do both!). I’ve been browsing bikes online and no matter how hard I try to hit the buy now button on “that’ll do bikes” I always end up perving on hot Canyon aero bikes instead.

In the end I decided to drag the old 80’s Paino road bike out of my storage cage and drop it off at Europa Cycles in Kensington for a tune up. The legend, John Abeni (shop owner) wasn’t there, but his son was (and I hear John is still around and well which is awesome), and as expected, there were still some really awesome old school road bikes in the shop on display.

In prep I’ve decided to swap out the old Campagnolo pedals and cages (they’re busted anyways) for some Shimano SPD pedals and so glad I stumbled upon these SPD compatible adidas Velosamba’s.

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Jasminia goes to China

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Always good catchups.

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Driving her to the airport!

My friend Jas is off to live in China for a bit. Massive move! I’m terrible at travelling alone (let alone grasping the concept of moving to another country) so I respect anyone that does. Follow her journey: https://www.tiktok.com/@jasminiag

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Fun at Pier One with little one

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Sunset shoot with Gina

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Fallout TV Show Season 1

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8 glorious episodes on Amazon Prime.

First The Sandman, now Fallout. Pinching myself that they’ve made a live action TV show of a game series I consider to be one of, if not the best games I’ve ever played. I actually feel lucky to have lived long enough to see this become a reality!

Truthfully I was going to love it whether it was good or crap, but the series delivered way more than I expected. Shot so beautifully with tonnes of depth of field and gritty saturated grading, the attention to detail in the props and set design was amazing and the writing whilst starting out a little slow picked up the pace real fast and by the end I was left wanting more. And holy shit there was so much fan service from start to end. Giddy!

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A person said his BRZ is a real sports car and my golf R was just a sporty car….

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My old R32 Golf.

This question was posted on the GolfR Subreddit and I couldn’t help but respond:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Golf_R/comments/1bx53wd/a_person_said_his_brz_is_a_real_sports_car_and_my/

Those who think the Golf is the better sports car because it’s faster in a straight line surely wouldn’t agree that a Tesla is a sports car? The hatchback was designed to load your groceries in the boot easier, the “hot hatch” is a grocery getter modified with sporty performance and handling.

I’ve owned a lot of hot/hotted up hatches; ED/EG Civics, a Jazz/Fit with a K20 engine swap, an ABT Supercharged R32 Golf, a track modified MKV GTI and a lot of other track modified cars too (EVO 6.5 TME/8, R32 GT-R, S2000 etc.) as awesome as these cars were no car taught me how to drive better on the circuit than an MX5/Miata (I’ve had 2).

The very first time I was out on the race track and a friend handed me the keys to his brand new BRZ I knew what the car was all about. Stock for stock it’s a lot more fun to drive on the limit on the track than an MX5. Much more predictable and those “crappy” Prius tyres really make the chassis show off what it can do on corner entry and exit. Before you know it you’re truly controlling the car with the rear wheels, scrubbing speed with oversteer vs understeer etc.

Many years later Toyota invited me out to the track to test drive their 86 race car (used in the Toyota 86 Racing Series) and IMHO the stock BRZ was WAY more fun (playful) than the race car most likely because the race car had sticky race rubber and I wasn’t able to push it as hard as I could the stock car.

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Top 10 games of my time

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I’m loving the hell out of Dragon’s Dogma 2. I’m 107+hrs in now and it’s my game of the year so far for sure. Such a great time for gamers, there are SO many awesome games to play and many more to come too.

I thought I’d try to put together a list of my fave games of all time.

My top 10 games of my time (in no particular order):
– Fallout 4
– Black Desert Online
– The Division
– Destiny 2
– Skyrim
– Warframe
– Gran Turismo 5
– The Last Of Us
– Monster Hunter: World
– Elden Ring

Honorable mentions:
– Prey
– The Surge
– Remnant: From the Ashes
– Remnant 2
– The Witcher 3
– Horizon Zero Dawn
– Nioh
– Quake I
– Quake II
– Marathon

And if I was stranded on an island, well… if I could only play the one game for the rest of my life it would have to be Skyrim.

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